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number considering that only seven other
ancient wooden objects have been recovered
in the entire Lesser Antilles, the island chain
that stretches from the Virgin Islands in the
north to Trinidad in the south. “Wood and
plant remains rarely survive in the archaeo-
logical record,” says University of Oxford
archaeologist Joanna Ostapkowicz. “Yet they
were potentially 90 percent of indigenous
material culture in Trinidad.”
The island has a long history of occupa-
tion. Connected to what is now Venezuela by
a land bridge until the end of the last Ice Age,
Trinidad was probably first visited by nomadic
hunter-gatherers as early as 10 , 000 years ago.
When it was first truly populated during the
Archaic period ( 6000 – 300 b.c.), it became a
stepping-stone into the Caribbean for several
waves of migration from the South American
mainland. The first Amerindian settlers, knownTrinidad’s Pitch Lake is one of
the biggest tar pits in the world.
Over the years, prehistoric
wooden artifacts, such as three
canoe paddles (left), have
emerged from its depths.